A city divided: Bucks see new arena as downtown melting pot

Although the mammoth, sparkly new arena that soon will be home to the Milwaukee Bucks is nearly complete, visitors still must wear a hard hat and closed-toed shoes to enter. The untouched mirrors in the restrooms bear protective plastic and a sticker that reads: “Please remove this anti-scratch film before use.” Green-and-white signs that say “Please do not walk on the courts” are positioned at every corner of the arena floor. Peter Feigin, the president of the Bucks, walked onto the court anyway.

Feigin supposes that he has given 100 of these arena tours — to All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo and his family, to center Thon Maker, who wanted to touch every surface, to prospective season ticket holders, to nearly anyone who asks. On this Tuesday afternoon tour, he wore a forest-green Bucks T-shirt and custom Air Jordans with the Bucks logo embossed on the back, a birthday present he rarely gets the opportunity to show off. He is thrilled to be out of the stiff suit that his day job usually demands.

The construction of the $524 million arena that seats 17,500 and will open at the beginning of the 2018-19 season was a contingency of the 2014 sale of the Bucks to New York-based owners Marc Lasry and Wes Edens. The building — which began construction next to the BMO Harris Bradley Center, the Bucks’ current home, after years of local political battles — is an important milestone in the franchise’s rebuilding effort. The Bucks hope it will help reshape the perception of the city too.

Perhaps no NBA city is in greater need of a melting-pot meeting point than Milwaukee.

Feigin told the Wisconsin State Journal in 2016 that Milwaukee was “the most segregated, racist place I’ve ever experienced.” While he didn’t want to revisit those comments this week, Feigin said the new arena could help transform the city’s downtown.

“I don’t think this (arena) is a solution for racial harmony,” he said. “But Milwaukee doesn’t have a centralized meeting place. There are no parks in the middle of the city. By building this plaza, you’ve kind of orchestrated a meeting place.

“There are certainly obstacles and certainly a long way to go, but our message is this is a wonderful city. We are an organization that will speak out about injustice, and we are also an organization that is focused on how we can solve problems.”

How did Milwaukee get here?

Segregation in Milwaukee has existed since 6 million African-Americans relocated from the rural South to Northern and Midwestern cities during the Great Migration. While many African-Americans settled in cities such as Chicago and New York, very few made the journey to Wisconsin until the 1960s and, by then, the city’s industry already was declining. As the New Republic explains, not long after African-Americans’ arrival in the city, the economy collapsed, leaving little time for a black middle class to develop in a city on the outskirts of the Rust Belt.

Those racial fissures are still present today. In 2013, the achievement gap between black and white students in Wisconsin was the highest in the nation. The majority of the city’s white residents live in the suburbs — very few live downtown, where the arena is being built. Nationwide, segregated cities tend to have higher rates of violence.

Tensions run high between the city’s police department and its black citizens. According to a 2013 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study, more than 50 percent of Milwaukee County’s black men in their 30s and 40s have been incarcerated. Between 2014 and 2015, the Milwaukee Police Department saw a 200 percent increase in police shootings.

“There are people who have told me racism isn’t that bad in Milwaukee,” said Reggie Jackson, the head griot of America’s Black Holocaust Museum and a lifelong Milwaukee resident. “But every demographic indicator shows that there are tremendous disparities. For the most part, the evidence is pretty substantial that Milwaukee, and even the state of Wisconsin, is the worst place to live if you’re a black person.”

Black NBA players are not immune. Several Bucks players have been targets of racial profiling. In 2015, police were dispatched to Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers in Milwaukee when Bucks center John Henson was trying to shop for Rolex watches. When officers arrived, a store employee asked them to stay while Henson looked at the watches. Most recently, and perhaps most notably, Milwaukee police officers arrested and used a Taser on guard Sterling Brown after a minor parking violation.

Making a statement

In the early hours of Jan. 26, 2018, Brown parked across multiple handicapped parking spots at a Walgreens near the Bradley Center. As Brown shopped, police officers found the car during a routine check and waited for Brown to return to his vehicle.

In the ensuing confrontation, which was captured by body-camera footage, officers gruffly asked Brown to “back up” and at least eight officers tackled him to the ground. Brown, who was arrested and stunned with the Taser, since has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the police department. Presented with video of one of their players being treated so harshly — in close proximity of their new arena, no less — the Bucks responded by issuing a statement defending Brown and decrying racial bias.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated case,” the Bucks’ statement read, in part. “It shouldn’t require an incident involving a professional athlete to draw attention to the fact vulnerable people in our communities have experienced similar, even worse, treatment. We are grateful for the services of many good police officers that courageously protect us, our fans and our city, but racial biases and abuses of power must not be ignored. There needs to be more accountability.”

The statement continued: “Incidents like this remind us of the injustices that persist.”

Coincidentally, the strongly worded statement was released on the same day the NFL trotted out new regulations for players protesting the national anthem. Fans and media personalities were quick to point out the differences between the leagues’ stances.

The statement, which received media praise for its thoughtfulness and candor, took more than a week to come together. Six people within the Bucks organization helped craft the final wording, and Feigin said the Bucks’ “progressive” ownership group aided the process.

“That statement went from being not as strong, to (medium) strong, to much stronger,” Feigin said. “We really debated as an organization how important the message is and how we want to stand and how the reactions are. So that was a very well thought-out, agreed-upon statement.”

A uniting stadium

Armed with a laser pointer that emits green light, Feigin led the way into the Bucks’ new locker room, pausing to greet Jerry, a custodian who was pushing a vacuum across the floor. No detail has been spared. The shower heads are mounted nine feet from the floor, the perfect height for NBA players. The only locker that looks finished is Antetokounmpo’s — “for obvious reasons,” Feigin said. The superstar’s last name and number 34 are printed in large block letters.

The timing of the arena’s opening is essential. The Bucks, who haven’t won a playoff series since 2001, are hoping their new arena will boost the organization’s ability to attract and retain free agents. Feigin explained that every detail — down to the shower heads and the stadium’s family room and playroom for young children — can be an edge when courting free agents.

Meanwhile, they also are seeking to expand their regional fan base with Antetokounmpo, one of the NBA’s most electrifying stars, and a new building serving as dual draws. Once the arena is completed, the Bucks plan to market its amenities in Madison and the Chicago suburbsoutside of Chicago. Last week, the team also held a job fair seeking to fill 600 part-time concessions jobs and 600 temporary guest-experience, retail and security positions.

“Once we get ’em here, we can sell them in a big way,” Feigin said. “But it’s a smaller market. You really have to put a lot of effort into it. We’ve got to position ourselves differently.”

With the custom license plate on his black SUV — “Bucks3” — serving as a billboard, Feigin concluded the tour and dashed off to Summerfest. There, he pitched his modern building and new vision to fans over the most traditional fare imaginable: sausage and beer. Change won’t happen overnight.